Foursquare Campaign is a location-based business feature to attract your customers by offering special awards for their checking in at your business venue. You can choose different types of specials matching your business target and activate a campaign to grow your business. All you have to do switch your Foursquare personal account to business account to activate and launch the Foursquare Campaign.

Steps

Part 1

Claiming a Venue

1

Log into your account to claim a venue. You must be a registered user of Foursquare to claim a venue. If you don’t claim a venue, you cannot create or activate a campaign on Foursquare.

Go to the home page of Foursquare at www.foursquare.com and click on “Log in” at the top right corner of the page. Enter your registered email address, or phone number, and password in the required fields then hit the “Log in” button.

Type your business name in the “Business name” field then enter the location name in the “Location” field. Click on “Search” button below to explore the results matching your business name and location. Choose the most appropriate venue for your business location.

3

Claim a venue to launch a campaign. Click on the venue name to browse the location page on Foursquare. After reaching the selected location page, click on “Claim it now” link on right side of the landing page and under the venue map. You will see a claiming page connected to the chosen venue on Foursquare.

Check the box “I’m the owner” on step 1 of the page (“Terms of use”) to agree with the terms of venue platform on Foursquare. Hit the “Get started” button below to move to the next step.

4

Verify your venue claiming through the “Validate ownership” process. Type your phone number in the required box to claim the ownership verification on “Validate ownership.” Next, you have to prove your ownership following the methods depending upon your claimed venue location.

To claim a venue located in the US, you can verify ownership through free postal mail. Enter your postal mail address in the required fields under “Validate ownership” to verify your ownership of a venue based in the US.

Submit your verification email, and the Foursquare team may take up to 4 weeks to successfully verify your claim by sending a mail to your postal address.

Enter the code provided by Foursquare to finish the verification in “Final verification” step.

If your venue is located outside of the US, you must add a valid debit or credit card with the permission of charging $20 USD as a one-time fee.

Add your debit or credit card under “Validate ownership” to verify your ownership of a venue outside the US. Put the card number and security code of the card in the required box. You need to choose the validation period of your added card from the drop-down calendar menu next to “Expire.”

Remember, Foursquare will charge $20 as a verification fee.

To start the processing, hit “Continue.” Enter the code provided by Foursquare to finish the verification.

After completing the verification steps, you will be able to access your business manager tools, and Foursquare will let you create and activate a campaign under your business.

Part 2

Activating a Campaign

1

Access to Foursquare “Manager Tools” page. You must switch your personal account into business page. If you don’t switch your account to business mode, you cannot access the Manager Tools page.

Hover your mouse pointer over your profile picture at the top right corner. Click on “Switch account” in the drop-down menu. Choose your business page, and your account will be switched to your business page, with the the Manager Tools option at top.

2

Create a campaign. Click on “Manager Tools” tab. You should see two tabs: “Venues” and “Campaign.” The listed venue is the place where you will launch your campaign.

Click on “Campaign” and the Campaign dashboard will open. If this is your first campaign, the dashboard will be empty. Click “Start a campaign” at the top right side of the page.

3

Add a special feature to your campaign. According to the official terms of Foursquare, you must choose a type of special from the Specials list.

Click on the “Add a special” button at the middle of the campaign box. After that, a campaign-setting box will appear, and you will need to follow the steps one by one promoted by Foursquare.

Choose the type of special from the list by clicking on the radio button before the offers’ names. These special offers are a way of rewarding the visitors or customers for their check-ins. You should choose a special option that matches your business target.

Choose “Flash Special” to reward a fixed number of people for checking in at your business page after a particular time.

Choose “Newbie Special” to announce an award to your new customers.

Choose “Check-in Special” to let the Foursquare users participate in checking in at your business.

Choose “Loyalty Special” to reward all Foursquare users for checking in either for a specific number of times or for a set number of times.

Choose “Mayor Special” to reward the customer who visited your business place the most within a 60-day time period.

Choose one of these specials according to your campaign plan for your business then hit the “Next” button to move to the next step.

4

Edit your special feature to fulfill your target. You can now personalize the terms of your special offer. After choosing a special offer, the second step will be set automatically, describing the unlocking rules of the offered special. However, you can still set a particular parameter to the number of customers.

Set the minimum number of customers in this parameter to redeem the special then click on “Next.”

Let your customers know what the offer is about in the “Offer description” field.

When you’re done, click on the “Create special” button at the right bottom corner of the campaign-setting box to create your campaign. You will be redirected to the “Campaign” tab.

5

Launch your campaign for a venue. After creating your campaign, it will be saved under your “Campaign” tab. You can activate this campaign for more than one venue.

Check the selected venue for the campaign by clicking on the “Venues” tab then set the ending date of your campaign according to your campaign plan. Your campaign will end on your fixed date automatically. Click on “Start campaign now” to activate your campaign instantly.

If you have any alternative date to activate the campaign, click on “Save this campaign for later” link next to the “Starting campaign” button.

Community Q&A

If this question (or a similar one) is answered twice in this section, please click here to let us know.

Tips

Share your activated campaign on Foursquare on other popular social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn, to let your customers know about it so they can participate.

Make a clear instruction for redeeming the offered special under your campaign to let the customers understand the rules of participating easily.

Try to use some professional phrases like “Be one of the first 3 people to check-in after 4 PM” or “SAVE 30% on any one regular-priced cloth item” in the “Offer description” field.

Check the preview of your created special on the right side of the page. You will see the exact form of the special that will be displayed before your customers.

Offer something of value, which is specific to your customers. You can set a monetary or experiential value to your special. Ignoring this requirement in your special is not applicable, and your special will be disapproved by the Foursquare team.

Review the statistics of your activated campaign under the “Campaign” tab on the “Manager Tools” page. You can check the progress of your activated campaign under a venue.